the essential
The disappearance of the Toupnot factory at the beginning of 2019 left employees in the lurch. Dismissed staff who have since tried to obtain compensation for the damage suffered. It’s not this time yet.
The employees of the Toupnot company did not discolor after receiving the decision of the industrial tribunal. The former employees of the factory based in Lourdes have not only had their claims for compensation rejected but they are ordered to pay 27,000 euros to the Cofigéo Group to which the factory which went up in smoke belonged at the beginning of 2019.
A new blow for employees who had already had to face numerous pitfalls, the latest being that of last February before the industrial tribunal, the body having refused to judge the merits of the case and the moral damage of impacted employees.
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Before the industrial tribunal, the Toupnots requested between €6 and €7 million in damages from their former employer
“We lose on an issue that has not been argued”
The decision rendered these days initially dampened the hopes of ex-employees but also gave renewed hope when reading the points examined by the council. It was enough for them to be increasingly mobilized to go to appeal. A decision which made Me Elise Brand, the employees’ lawyer, who expressed her amazement at the chronology of these events, always painful for the employees, jump: “On Thursday September 26, the industrial tribunal rendered its decision in regarding non-managerial employees, I would like to say that, already, during the debates, we felt a certain hostility towards this procedure and we refused to express ourselves on a certain number of requests for which the “the body declared itself incompetent and therefore we could not plead them.”
This is what outrages the lawyer and those she represents today: “We discovered that the council ruled on a difficulty which was not raised and that the question could not be pleaded and we lose on this question of breach of safety obligations without the arguments being pleaded Because the group, between the fire and the dismissal, did not take care of its employees and made them believe that it would continue? activity? Even though the insurance companies have compensated? In thirty years of career, this is the first time that I have seen this! It’s the icing on the cake! period.” A lawyer stunned by the conviction of the employees themselves: “We also did not expect that the industrial tribunal would decide to order the employees to pay the Cofigéo group for its procedural costs to the tune of 27,000 euros!”
Me Elise Brand is therefore not going to let herself be defeated and she is already in a fighting position: “As Talleyrand said, “everything that is excessive is insignificant” and we will go to the end.
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Dramatic twist: the damage suffered by Toupnot employees will not be examined this Thursday, “a shame”
A decision which only reinforced the combativeness of the staff of the old factory but also of their lawyer who decided to appeal: “We need a balance between the rights of the strongest and those of the weakest. The council of industrial tribunal, it’s a jurisdiction that I admire and respect, but such a lack of understanding of justice is very worrying. What am I going to tell people if we had lost? dropped everything but paying 27,000 euros strengthens them in this fight.”
The next meeting is already on the “Toupnot” agenda, a first stage which will take place on November 6 before the Pau Court of Appeal at 2 p.m.
